Arts & Culture

A day out at the President’s house It is a cold sunny Saturday morning in late spring, and we’re having a coffee in the courtyard of the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, which is a find in itself. It is tucked away beyond the Walled Garden, which is getting geared up for June’s Bloom gardening festival. The rhubarb that grows there ends up in the tarts at the café next door. The fashion around us tends towards running gear. Babies who’ve been whisked out early toddle about the place, while peop

A miniature museum in the heart of the city Flat 3B, Bull Alley Estate on Patrick Street is a cosy flat comprising a living room and two bedrooms. It was once home to the Molloy family and built by The Iveagh Trust. In 1890, Edward Cecil Guinness, the First Earl of Iveagh and grandson of the original Arthur Guinness, provided houses and amenities for working-class people with low incomes in Dublin. The Iveagh Building replaced some of the worst slum dwellings in Europe. And, at the time, these new flats were state of the art.

Joyce, O’Casey, Beckett – you can’t even cross the Liffey without acknowledging Dublin’s literary heritage in the names of its bridges. The ubiquitous blue plaques marking writers’ birthplaces and residences are in such abundance, we can lose sight of how spoiled we are for the old haunts of literary greats. Wittgenstein on Parkgate Street, Bernard Shaw on Synge Street, Bram Stoker on Marino Crescent – even the Irish Writers Centre on

On St. Patrick’s Day 2017, Stephen James Smith sat a few rows back from Michael D Higgins in the presidential stand outside the GPO. Sitting beside his father, he watched as the parade passed by on O’Connell Street. He thought about how bizarre the whole situation was. He felt humbled by the experience. Aware of the risk of getting a swelled head, he knew he had to stay focussed on the next project. Stephen had been commissioned by St. Patrick’s Festival to produce a poem in honour of our national holiday. The parade was inspired by Stephen’s words. “It was surreal,” he says. “Almost 20 years ago

The old Jameson whiskey distillery is a beautiful and historic building in the heart of Dublin. It’s undergone numerous changes in its long life, the most recent of which has seen the building transformed into a spacious venue for distillery tours and events. As the project manager at the Jameson Brand Home, Paula Reynolds played a central role in the redevelopment of the site. “We were lucky in that the people working with us on the renovation managed to keep about 90 per cent of the original structures intact.” She points to the glass flooring we’re walking on. “Through the glass here you can see the original foundations of the distillery.” She points to

In conversation with Panti Bliss When the Marriage Equality referendum passed in May of 2015, Ireland’s dearest drag queen Panti Bliss took her place on the podium at Dublin Castle. Standing alongside Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams and the then-Minister for Justice Francis Fitzgerald, she addressed the emotional crowd. Rory O’Neill’s alter ego, Panti, who had always been in the peripheral vision of the Irish people, was now front and centre having played a hugely important role in the Yes campaign. I don’t think Dubliners accept anyone as a Dubliner, unless they were born here. Today, Panti performs all over the world, but

‘Do you know the Five Lamps?’ If you’ve heard this question before - and been foolish enough to answer in the affirmative - you’ll know not to answer it again. Essentially it’s a peculiarly Dublin way to tell someone to shut-up or to feck-off: ‘Do you know the Five Lamps? Well go hang your bollox off them!’. No one actually knows how this old saying originated. Well, how could they? But hats off to whichever Dublin wit it was who came up with it. Now it’s part of inner city Dublin culture. The lamps in question are in Dublin’s North Strand area, situated at the junction of five streets: Portland Row, North Strand Road, Seville Place, Amiens Street and Killarney Street. There it is, sitting an island in the middle of the road: a decorative five-branched lamp-post.